


You spoke of roses

by aldonza



Category: Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Crack Relationships, F/F, I know what you're all thinking: What?, Rare Pairings, rosy hours, slightly dark, to which I can only say: Yes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-18
Updated: 2020-06-18
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:06:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24795136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aldonza/pseuds/aldonza
Summary: The Sultana was a rose, beautiful and keen and as elusive as smoke. She was a poem, a word from a brush, and a thread of silk knotted around Christine’s hand. But under those petals, there were thorns, sharp, unyielding, and unimaginably cruel.Or, the AU in which the Shah-in-Shah hires Gustave Daae instead of the faceless magician. And the violinist's daughter catches the eye of the little Sultana.Written for littlelonghairedoutlaw / ponderinfrustration’s #potorarepairs contest.
Relationships: Christine Daaé/Little Sultana, Raoul de Chagny & Christine Daaé
Comments: 12
Kudos: 19





	You spoke of roses

**Author's Note:**

> I will jump at any and all chances to write about my problematic fav, the little Sultana! This is my entry for the PotoRarepairs contest (thanks to ponderinfrustration for creating it!). It was also written as part of a deal with helloitskrisha (who also deserves a special thanks for encouraging my behavior lol!).
> 
> As always when writing poto's Shah, I write him as a fictional character based on the historical Shah rather than one and the same. This story's Sultana is the *same* Sultana from "The Little Sultana's Favourite Pasttime" and there's one other character those of you familiar with the series might recognize. For the purposes of the story, Christine's timeline has been moved back. 
> 
> Warning: The Little Sultana is a warning all by herself, no happy ending

_ You spoke of roses- _

I.

Christine celebrated her thirteenth birthday with a chocolate pastry and a crown of violets in her hair. Papa sang in her ear and lifted her upon his shoulders, though (as he often put it) she was growing too big for such things. Raoul had promised to send her a gift, but she doubted he would have been able to find her; she knew Papa could not settle just yet, not when he still had to play the violin until his hands shook, when he had to stand from sun up to sun down for their next meal. 

Christine memorized the corners of streets and the texture of hay, the scent of horses and candy apples- but never an address. She slept in caravans and barns, and the homes of kind strangers who would have them for a night and day. And though she loved the temptation of adventure at dawn and the warmth of Papa’s chest beneath her head, she sometimes dreamt of Raoul’s summer home by the sea. With some guilt, she dreamt of soft silk beneath her back and cool water beneath her blistering feet. 

But even without pillows and dresses and a belly half full, Christine was happy. Because she sang by Papa’s side and listened to his stories at night. He would carry her on his back when she was too tired to stand and he’d hum her lullabies until she slept. Come autumn, she collected orange leaves and tucked them behind his ear. In winter, she huddled in Papa’s arms, laughing as logs of fire burned. They walked hand-in-hand along clearings in spring, Papa stopping to pick any flower she liked. And in summer, they returned to the beach, where Raoul would wait.

And Christine would be forever content, as long as she could stay by Papa’s side. This was all she knew and all she would need.

Then, one night, when they’d wandered as far as Nijni-Novgorod, surrounded by tongues she could not speak and coats of all types, she saw a man come to Papa’s side. He stood bundled in pelts, a cap of fur atop his head. 

To her then, he had been tall, striking, and severe as a god come down. She later learned he was no ordinary man, for such a figure could be anything but-- he called himself the police chief of Mazandaran, the  _ daroga _ under the Shah-in-Shah.

“Are you Gustave Daae?” he asked Papa.

And so intimidated, Papa had almost dropped his bow. But the man caught it, with as firm a grip as if catching a sword.

“His majesty has a proposition for you.”

The King of Persia wanted Papa. And as the fireaters of Nijni-Novgorod blew their flames far behind, Christine felt as if they had wandered into a story she did not know.

And the page could never turn back.

II.

All Christine knew of queens and kings, she knew from storybook tales and children’s poems. Once, she had thought the same of counts and dukes-- then she’d met Raoul and Philippe, and learned that they were the same as everyone else. But a little viscount was not a prince, and a prince was not a king. 

And kings did not speak to little girls in patchwork dresses. Until they did.

She did not know how many days it took to reach Mazandaran. Her head had been lost in the journey over, stuck in clouds she could not part. 

When they arrived, she felt as if the ground beneath her feet would melt. They walked over ornate tiles and marble floors, the Persian Shah’s palace grander than anything she had ever seen, big enough to house a thousand Christines and nothing like the stories of the East. It was more splendid than any story could write.

“Was the journey pleasant, Daroga?”

Papa was on his knees, so Christine was as well. But when she heard that voice, she could not resist looking up. 

She did not know how she imagined the Shah to be, perhaps a towering man adorned in armor. Not the king she saw, a boy who looked as young as his voice had seemed, a bit of fuzz where a mustache should be.

The Shah adjusted the buttons of his coat. When he caught her looking, he smiled, dimples in his cheeks. He seemed older than her, but not by much, perhaps a year over Raoul, certainly younger than Philippe. 

But he was a king.

And he was smiling at her. So she smiled back.

Then the daroga spoke in their tongue and the Shah replied. In French, he told Papa how happy he was to receive them in court.

“I’ve heard many great things about your bow,” he said, “once you’re rested, my wife would be most delighted to hear you play.”

The king didn’t seem old enough to have a wife. Did he have children too, then? Were there babes in the palace right now? And they would call this boy ‘baba’?

_ “No, I want to hear it now.” _

A child’s voice. Behind them.

Christine turned, as did Papa and the daroga. Holding a eunuch’s hand, a girl looked to them with light brown eyes- copper framed with lashes of black. Rosy cheeks and petal lips, as soft as the first blooms of spring. She saw Christine then, and the girl smiled, her entire being swelling with light.

She was as pretty as a teacup, and quite honestly, the most beautiful person Christine had ever seen.

And something stopped in Christine’s throat, a silent hiccup that would not allow her to look away.

“You must be the violinist,” she said to Papa, a lilting accent at the edge of each sweet word.

But her eyes never left his daughter. And Christine could only gape as the little Sultana fluttered about. 

III.

The Shah had eighty-four wives, Christine soon learned. At first, she had thought she misheard. Surely, the Sultana meant eight. But the Sultana only laughed at her confusion, butterfly wings from her giggly throat, and said again, “Eighty-four.”

The little Sultana was not the youngest per se, but she was certainly the most beloved. The daroga had made that clear when he explained this to Papa. The Shah sought to please all his wives, but he doted on the little Sultana as he had no one else before. If not for her request, Daae and his daughter would never have set foot in court.

“Why me?” Papa had asked.

“You caught the fancy of a fur trader,” the daroga explained, ever serious despite the humor of his topic, “and he in turn caught the fancy of a eunuch by his majesty’s side. And his word-- the little Sultana took to heart. She has an ear for these things.”

And what she wanted, she always received.

But Papa never stood out much among the other musicians at court. The Sultana only occasionally summoned him to play her to sleep, outside her door while the servants stood guard. 

Christine, however, caught the Sultana’s eye. Christine had no idea why, for she never thought herself much to behold, a simple girl in threadbare clothes, too shy for her own good. 

Now she stood in a dress too fancy for her skin and shoes too soft for her feet. A maid had combed her curls into matching braids and washed the dirt from behind her ears. She wondered if this was how those peasant girls in stories felt, when they lost their rags for silks and bows. But it was not the favor of a prince that earned her these things.

“My wife wishes for your daughter’s company,” the Shah had informed Papa, casual as he swung his legs upon his throne, “she thinks they would make good friends.”

Some years later, Christine would look back and wonder why she hadn’t found it strange that the Sultana sought her companionship when she had eighty-three peers to choose from (why she never found it odd that the other wives never looked the little Sultana’s way).

But then, she had been too taken by the Sultana to notice. The other girl was a year older than Christine, fourteen, though she had the childish face of someone a year beneath. In the Sultana’s quarters, Christine would sit still at the foot of her bed while the little Sultana fondled her hair.

Raoul had done the same the summer before. He held her hair as if they were beams of light, threads pulled directly from the sun outside. 

The Sultana held her locks as if they were bits of string, come loose from cloth and in need of being stitched back in. But her touch was gentler than a boy’s, eager and soft and enough to make Christine blush.

“You have a pretty voice,” the Sultana told her, “Christine Daae.”

“Thank you, your highness.”

The Sultana smiled, tucking Christine’s locks back in place. Christine thought of the Sultana’s own hair, silken black and smoother than her unruly curls could ever be.

“Parisa,” the other girl said, “you- and you alone- may call me Parisa.”

_ “Parisa,” _ Christine whispered, as if a prayer had passed her tongue, a sacred vow from heaven above.

“Will you sing for me?” the Sultana- Parisa- asked.

“Whenever you wish.”

Christine spent her fourteenth birthday in the company of Persian musicians and the favor of a boy-king. The little Sultana had ordered a cake prepared for her in the tradition of European cooks, and come night, Parisa placed a crown of roses upon her head. Christine fell asleep upon silk sheets, the Mazandaran breeze floating in from a window pulled up.

IV.

The coast of Mazandaran was unlike the beach of Trestraou, but Christine let it overtake her nonetheless. While Papa and the musicians played, Christine wandered through shore with the wind in her hair, sea salt in her nose. The Shah (the boy-king) danced ahead, twirling the little Sultana in his arms while his servants struggled to keep up. The boy-king laughed, a wave seeping to his ankles and creeping on. 

“Christine!” he called, “come!”

She rushed to join them, the little Sultana taking her hands into her own. Her grip was strong, strange for such delicate fingers, but warm in their strength. She laughed with the Sultana and her Shah, the sand wiggling between their toes.

And when the Shah turned away, the Sultana pursed her lips. She cast Christine a knowing glance, mischievous in their brown, and cupped water into her palms. She splashed it upon the Shah’s back.

Holding back a yelp, he returned her blow, kicking water until she and Christine were wet from head to toe. And still, the Sultana held onto Christine’s hand.

“Come, Christine!” she said, a giggle after.

Tugging Christine along, the Sultana ran. Christine was content to follow and the Shah was content to chase. For a moment, she forgot that they were a king and his queen. They were only children in the sand, as carefree as she and her Raoul had been. 

Then the eunuch caught up to them at last. It would be sunset soon, he’d said, and it was best they return before the sky turned black. 

And thus, the summer passed.

V.

The little Sultana had an array of pets she often showed Christine. Snakes and tigers and monkeys of all sorts. There had even been a lion, she claimed. Of these pets, Christine enjoyed watching the birds the most. The Sultana kept them all in a garden outside, beyond a bed of roses and perched in cages of gold. 

“His majesty will buy a peacock for me soon,” Parisa said, “he thinks these things will make me happy.”

Christine furrowed her brow. “Don’t they?”

Something darkened in the Sultana’s eyes. She shook her head. “Never for long. In fact…”

She caressed a lock of gold hair and said, “His gifts have always meant nothing to me. Except for one.”

Christine’s breath stopped when the Sultana’s voice hummed beside her ear:  _ “You.” _

VI.

On the day after Christine’s sixteenth birthday, the Sultana summoned her at exactly midnight. Her chamber was empty when Christine arrived, not even a girl to attend them on the side. 

“I didn’t send you a gift this time,” the Sultana said grimly, her face ghostly in the candlelight, and pretty as a painting nonetheless.

Christine laughed, light. “You’ve given me so much already, you and his majesty both. You don’t need to concern yourself with me, your highness-”

But the Sultana shushed her. Night gown swaying, she approached Christine, a haughty turn to her chin. She smiled.

“No. It’s unacceptable, Christine. But I do have a gift for you tonight.”

The Sultana’s hands touched her face, thumbs circling into the skin of her cheeks. And Christine felt heat beneath them, a blush thankfully lost in the dark. 

“Would you be happy, my friend, with anything I offered you?” the Sultana said.

It was a question, blunt and graceful, and yet Christine knew Parisa already had an answer. And it was the correct one.

“Yes,” she replied, barely a whisper.

Rose petals pressed into her lips, the Sultana bestowing a kiss upon her mouth. A shiver coarsed through Christine’s spine, her heart knocking behind her breastbone, begging for another touch of lips. 

But that was all the Sultana would offer her. 

“Good night, Christine,” the Sultana said, but her words curled into a taunt, as if she knew Christine wished for another kiss. And because she knew, she denied.

“Goodnight,” Christine answered.

Then she was in the hall once more, as dazed as the stars above.

VII.

Christine took Papa’s place among the musicians when Gustave fell ill. She did not think her skills with the bow were much to behold, but the others had made no remark (though his majesty had suggested Christine sing instead, as she always had). Papa had fallen ill before-- she was no stranger to the coughs and fevers.

But each time, he would awake after a few days’ rest, gaunter perhaps, but healthy once more.

This time, something in her stomach told her he would stay in bed. It was a nasty unease she could not shake, a snake of doubt that had lodged itself in her chest. She excused herself from visiting her highness during these times, for she felt that it was her duty to tend Papa instead.

And still, a part of her recoiled at that excuse. Because she knew she could not bear to look at the Sultana’s face (the coy lashes, the pink lips). Not without thinking of that night. And when she sang for the Shah-in-Shah, the little Sultana (Parisa) no longer fixed her gaze on Christine.

“Are you upset with me?” she could not resist asking the Sultana once, when she found the older girl in the rose garden, “because I was too busy to see you?”

In truth, Christine was angry- bitter, hurt- and she wished the Sultana could see the pain in her gaze, if only for a moment.

“I love his majesty,” Parisa said, her tone light, a bouncy laugh on her tongue, “surely you understand, Christine.”

“I don’t,” Christine answered, defying the Sultana for the very first time.

And with mock pity, Parisa teased, “Then you will be most unhappy in this world.”

The Sultana plucked a rose from its bed, the thorns sharp between her fingers, and walked ahead. 

Christine remembered the myriad of pets. She was not some creature the Sultana could catch and throw away. Throat hot, she felt herself possessed by some storm of wrath. Then without regard for consequence, rank, or anything else, she said:

“I love you.” 

The Sultana stopped, but she did not look back.

“And I know you don’t love him,” Christine told her, “you never have. You never speak of him when he’s not with you, you never return any of his favors, you think he should thank  _ you _ for accepting his gifts- if you loved him-”

The rose crumpled in the Sultana’s grip, its thorns dragging blood from skin.

“If you loved him,” Christine said, “you would not act so cruelly.”

She did not know if the Sultana turned around, for Christine had left in a flurry of angry steps.

VIII.

One of the maids was blind, a strip of silk always tied around her eyes. But the others in the palace were quite fond of her. She was a hard worker, they’d said, and she scrubbed skirts until not a speck of dust remained. Versatile, clever, and quick to learn. But she would never ascend the ranks. 

Christine thought she was kind and sometimes she would speak to the maid if she saw her in the halls. It was rather cruel, she thought, to make her work when she cannot see.

“Can anything be done for her?” she asked the daroga when she caught him at court.

He said no, and as she pestered him- no longer as afraid of him as she had been as a girl of thirteen- he gave in.

“She used to attend the little Sultana,” he told her, “it’s best this way.”

“I’ve never seen her in the Sultana’s chambers.”

“This was before your arrival.”

“I can speak with her highness,” Christine said, “perhaps she can use the girl again-”

“No.” The daroga shook his head, a dash of sadness (or was it fear?) in his eyes. “They did not get along.”

“They were children. Misunderstandings may have happened.”

“You’re kind, Christine.” Too kind, he almost said. “But what happened was not a misunderstanding.”

Then her blood ran cold, chilled to ice when he said, “The little Sultana poked her eyes out.”

Christine tasted bile. She remembered Parisa’s lovely laugh, her hands carding through her hair, her lips upon her own, the unmistakable blush of love she felt for the Shah’s young wife. It sickened Christine to her core.

That night, she asked Parisa if what the daroga said was true, if she been so wicked as to do something so cruel.

“Ah,” the Sultana said, as if she was surprised Christine did not know, “yes, I did.”

_ How could you? _ Christine knew that was what she should have said. But instead, she whispered, “Why?”

The Sultana regarded her for a moment, waiting for Christine to run away. But Christine stayed put, unwilling to budge until she received an answer. She remembered the girl who twisted her curls in her hands, who asked her to speak of stories from the North, who giggled with her over bits of gossip and her newest fancies-- she remembered her friend, the Parisa she thought she loved, and gulped. Fear nipped at her, the fear that the little Sultana was every bit as wicked as the rest of them said (and Christine had chosen to turn a blind eye).

“That girl looked at me,” the Sultana said, sitting herself upon the bed, “the same way my father did.”

She parted the hair on her scalp, revealing a jagged mark on the tip of her crown, the size of a small coin. “The man I called father did this when he pushed me into a wall.”

She beckoned Christine over, and taking the other girl’s hand in her own, pressed Christine’s fingers to the scar. 

“He hated me,” she hissed, “I hated him too. But it’s no matter- he gave me to the Shah afterwards. I loved his majesty because he loved me, but you know what-”

She pushed Christine’s hand away. Roughly. And before Christine could step back, the Sultana seized her chin with her finger and thumb, nails coming close to her gold lashes.

“You were right,” Parisa said, breathed, “I don’t love him. I love being loved by him. I loved the way he looks at me-”

_ The way you look at me, _ Christine almost heard.

“And I almost forgot how father used to see me. Until that little wretch looked down on me.”

She released Christine, finger brushing past her lower eyelid. “I put her in her place with my own hand. If I didn’t, they’d all look down on me- I did it to survive.”

Blinking tears back, Christine said, “I’m sorry, Parisa, I’m sorry you endured that. But that girl did  _ not _ deserve such cruelty- nobody does. There’s no excuse for that.”

“I gave you a reason, not an excuse.”  _ I don’t need excuses, _ the Sultana seemed to say.

Christine shivered, the warmth of Parisa’s hand still around her eye.

“I’m not going to change for you. You ought to know that by now.”

“You shouldn’t change for me,” Christine snapped back, “but you must change for yourself, for the sake of your soul.”

Parisa laughed, but there was no mirth to be found. “You’ve grown quite the spine! Unlike his majesty, unlike-”

She bit her lip. “My father’s no longer in Mazandaran. His majesty had him exiled, stripped of everything and sent away with my mother and the rest of that family.”

“Parisa-”

“Because I made his majesty do it. And that man- he was never my father. The whole family knew it- I looked nothing like him.”

But Christine had stopped listening by then, distracted by the tears welling in the Sultana’s eyes. It was the first time she saw Parisa weep. And Christine put her arms around the Sultana. She hadn’t forgiven her. But now she understood. And Christine had thought understanding was enough. She did not see how quickly Parisa’s tears had dried (for she had learned how to stop crying long ago).

IX.

Papa died shortly after Christine’s seventeenth summer. His majesty had attended his funeral and allowed Christine to bury him the Christian way. The musicians left her to mourn and in the months that followed, she garbed herself in black, unable to find the strength to sing. She felt a ghost of herself, and completely alone.

She was old enough to know that stories were just that. And still, she wondered if she was pious enough, good enough, her father would rise from the dead (like Lazarus) and kiss her on the brow once more. 

“Do you wish to stay?” the daroga had asked, “his majesty is willing to care for you as long as you wish it.”

Christine loved the musicians. She loved the Shah. She loved the servants. And a part of her still loved the little Sultana in spite of it all. If she left now, she would return to Europe with nothing. Perhaps a handsome fortune, but without Papa, without her friends, she could not bother.

There was Raoul. She hadn’t thought of Raoul in so long. She used to tell the Sultana of Raoul, of the little boy that rescued her red scarf from the sea. She had written to Raoul when they first arrived. She’d eagerly shared his answers with her friends. And then one day, he never replied. 

Persia was a long way from France. She wondered if the winds had carried her letters away. She never had a home, so she could say she felt homesick, but she missed Raoul’s house by the sea then. More than anything, she wanted to sit in its attic with that little boy again, her father playing his bow downstairs.

X.

The little Sultana had hired a team of architects to build a new pool of some sorts. She’d left Christine to mourn since Papa’s funeral, but the day after Christine’s eighteenth birthday, the Sultana summoned her to the construction site.

“Mirrors,” Parisa told her, “on the ceiling, and the walls, and a pool here.”

She gestured at the empty pit, tiled with Turkish blue. 

“It will be like the ocean. If you swim inside, there’s no telling where it begins or ends.”

There was giddiness in the Sultana’s throat, something that Christine could not quite place.

“Why are you showing me this?” she asked.

“Because,” the Sultana said, looking into her with those bright brown eyes, “it reminds me of you. I don’t remember where you began. And I can’t say where you will end.”

Christine frowned. “I don’t understand.”

“My husband is all I have.” Parisa closed the space between them. “My soul belongs to him. But we both know that’s not true.”

“Parisa-”

“Stay. If I must entrust my soul to anyone, it can only be you.”

Christine pushed her lips over the Sultana’s own, touching petals with her kiss. 

“I know,” she muttered.

Then she’d told the daroga that she wanted to stay.

XI.

The Shah-in-Shah knew he was losing his little Sultana, his dearest wife. In the year that followed, he threw her countless banquets and bought near over a hundred new pets. He had gardens built in her honor. He hired entertainers from the east and west. And he’d even made a lion and tiger fight, simply because he wanted to see her laugh.

And the Sultana laughed. But only because she accepted these favors as she always had.

As far as the Shah knew, Christine was only another favor, and as far as Christine knew, her heart was too tired to feel guilt. If his majesty loved Parisa as much as he claimed, he would let her love Christine.

That was what the Sultana whispered to her each night. Kisses on her skin. A hand across her waist. Head between her breast.

The Sultana was a rose in full bloom, beautiful and sharp and as elusive as smoke. She was a poem, a word from a brush, and a thread of silk knotted around Christine’s hand. With her, Christine needed no one else.

But under those petals, there were thorns, sharp, unyielding, and unimaginably cruel. And Christine wondered if she was only choosing to look away, to shut her eyes and pretend that the thorns did not exist.

Or perhaps Parisa had blinded her as well.

XII.

The French photographer came to court in spring. His majesty called the man an old friend, though Christine had never seen him in her life. Still, she was pleased for the Shah, pleased that he had another kindred spirit to share his love of art and marvels. But the photographer had brought a friend, a naval officer of noble birth.

And Christine recognized him the moment her eyes saw that burst of gold hair. He hadn’t changed a bit. Taller, handsomer, perhaps, but his boyish disposition had never changed. Raoul de Chagny had returned to her life.

He’d wept when he saw her. Apologized a thousand times over for not being able to write back. Her letters had indeed disappeared in the wind, and he’d been made to join the navy. He kissed her on the cheeks and professed to having no attachments.

“Lotte,” he said, “my heart is still yours. It always has been.”

And Christine remembered, the way she flushed when Raoul came to close, the pump of her heart when his hand touched hers, the boy she once loved. But she did not feel those things now, only a faint regret that she could not. Only a note of guilt that she could not say the same to him.

But she felt for him dearly, and during the photographer’s visit, she never spent a moment apart from Raoul (and she ignored it when the Sultana yawned at his greeting). Even the daroga had asked if the Vicomte wanted her hand in marriage. The answer might have been “yes,” but Christine only laughed the question off.

Then she’d asked the Sultana, “Are you all right with our friendship? You didn’t seem happy to see Raoul.”

Parisa smiled (or rather smirked, but her lips were so sweet they never looked like they could sneer). “Are you asking me if I’m jealous?”

“No. I’m only asking if you’re unhappy.” Christine stood her ground- she’d learned by now how to read the Sultana’s moods. “Raoul is my friend and I intend to keep seeing him.”

“Ah, Christine, I really couldn’t care less.” She snaked her arms around Christine’s neck. “I don’t envy him. Would you ask the same thing if I was a yellow-haired foreigner?”

Parisa leaned in for a kiss, but stopped mid-way. “I could not tell Raoul de Chagny apart from a crowd of a hundred other westerners. He looks the same as every other man with gold hair to me. In fact, the only blue-eyed person I can recognize-”

She pecked Christine on the lips. Then pulled apart with a hum. “-Is you. So keep seeing him, Christine. I couldn’t care less.”

XIII.

The wall behind the Sultana’s pool was made of mirrors. At her request, the mirrors functioned as windows from the outside and reflections from within. And it was the day that she intended to flood the pool from floor to ceiling that the story ended for Christine.

She woke up from that rosy mist, realizing too late that she was now lost in the bed of thorns.

She did not know what she’d said to spur the Sultana on. Or perhaps this had been Parisa’s plan all along, from the moment she first saw Raoul. Perhaps it was a test. But whatever it was, Christine loathed it.

The engineer- Vahid- had asked Raoul to help inspect the pool. Christine had found it strange when Raoul told her of such a task, for Vahid had plenty of men to do it in his stead. The photographer had said nothing, as if he already knew (from the very start). And Christine could quell the doubts no longer-

Parisa had blinded a girl for looking at her the wrong way, had cheered while animals tore each other apart, and had shown no remorse for a single thing. She’d strung Christine along like another pet, and the woman knew then, that the Sultana had worse planned for Raoul (not because of envy, but because she could and so, she did).

Christine charged into the room behind the pool, out of breath, while Vahid and the Sultana looked into the walls. Raoul wandered the corners, pausing to stare at each tile, his reflection on every mirror behind. And the water was already rising, at his ankles, then his legs.

“Stop this!” she cried.

The Sultana ignored her. Christine shoved Vahid aside, wrenching the lever in his grip. The water stopped at Raoul’s chin. But there was still panic on his face. There was no exit for him. As he swam blindly about, Christine turned to the Sultana.

“How could you?” she whispered.

The Sultana shrugged. “I wanted to see if the water worked.”

“Let him go,” Christine said, a myriad of fear and anger bubbling within.

“Or what?” Parisa asked, the familiar taunt on her tongue, “will you kill me, Christine? Offer your life in his place?”

“Why are you doing this!?”

The Sultana thought for a moment. Then she grinned, perhaps sneered, as sickeningly sweet as she was on the day they first met. 

“I wanted to,” she said, “that’s answer enough for you.”

She motioned to Vahid, but Christine stepped between them.

“No,” Christine told them, “no! That’s not enough! It should never be enough- I trusted you, I loved you, I-”

Pulling at her own locks, Christine said through building tears, “You blamed the Shah, you blamed your father, the servant girl, Raoul, me, anyone who did not give you what you wanted- you blamed them for everything and I believed you, but-”

And she shouted, “It’s in your soul that the true distortion lies!”

Vahid had paled. And the Sultana- Parisa- dropped her smile. Hand shaking, she looked Christine in the eye, features silent. Her lip quivered.

.

.

.

And the little Sultana said,  _ “I know.” _

.

.

.

She pushed the lever again. “I’m having supper with his majesty tonight. You may join us if you wish.”

She walked away.

As the water rose once more, Christine pounded the walls, crying Raoul’s name until her voice went hoarse. The Sultana was gone. And Vahid had followed. 

Alone, Christine smashed glass until it cracked against her knuckles. The water did the rest. It flooded in, pushing her away in a wave of rough sea. And floating atop the water, fists bloodied and wet from head to toe, she held Raoul- since unconscious and blue, but alive, if only by a fraction- and wept.

Christine did not drown. But her heart had since sunk to the bottom of that abyss. 

And she laughed at the irony of it all-- perhaps she had hoped the Sultana would have a change of heart, that underneath her thorns, there was another rose. But the little Sultana was proud of her thorns (this, Christine realized too late) and even now, she expected Christine to dine at her table.

Even now.

_ \- You spoke of roses / All I feel are thorns - _

**Author's Note:**

> Title/lyrics taken from the song "Thorns" by Luna Shadows (which I consider a great song for the Sultana!). Thanks for reading through my crack and I hope it was enjoyable! Comments/kudos are always appreciated!
> 
> I headcanon that the Sultana would still be able to carry out her "creative" ideas without Erik's help, but they'd be less advanced and cruder without his touches.


End file.
